The time has come for Muslims to fully adopt the British way of life

IT WAS the Church of England’s Gerald Ratner moment, wasn’t it?

A comprehensive trashing of the brand by the guy meant to be spreading the word.

Whatever Rowan Williams does from here on in, his call for Britain to accommodate the Islamic legal system of sharia law is what he will always be remembered for.

With the General Synod now in full swing, perhaps the time has come for non-Anglicans to withdraw from intruding on private grief because there is a far bigger and scarier problem to be considered in the wake of Dr Williams’s outburst than the shambles that is the CofE.

It is this: while the Arch­bishop and his fellow travellers spout their nonsense, the leaders of British Islam still don’t appreciate the degree to which their behaviour is despised by the majority of the public.

Our hospitality is being abused by radical Islam.

Unless they give up their obsession with grievance and victimhood and instead under­stand the need to integrate and contribute positively, Britain will slide towards segregation and civil strife.

There are plenty of opinion polls which highlight the views of the estimated two million Muslims in this country. Apparently, 40 per cent wish to live under sharia law. But there never seem to be any polls highlighting what the rest of us think about the Muslims in our midst. I wonder why?

Cnsider which of these statements best reflects your own view:

a) Britain would be a better country if there were more Muslims living here.

b) There is the right number of Muslims in Britain to serve the country’s interests.

c) It would be preferable if Britain did not have a large Muslim population at all.

Got an answer yet? I bet it wasn’t A. The ferocity and extent of the backlash against Dr Williams demonstrates that the British people feel their hospitality has been abused and will brook no further compromise with radical Islam.

A profit-and-loss account of the impact of Islam on Britain will quickly demonstrate why.

On an economic level, the impact of Britain’s Muslims is massively negative. Research shows Muslim communities are typified by heavy levels of welfare dependency and low levels of wealth creation.

A report last year by the Left-wing Institute for Public Policy Research found that fewer than half of adults from four of the biggest Muslim groups here – Somalis, Bangla­deshis, Turks and Pakistanis – are in employment.

And because of the high number of children in their families they also tend to be heavy users of expensive public services such as the NHS.

On a wider cultural basis, the impact of Islam on this country is also strongly negative in the eyes of the public.

Islam has repressed women in a way Britain has not tolerated for hundreds of years. Forced marriage, honour killing, female genital mutilation, enforced wearing of the veil – all are abominations present within British Muslim communities.

The repression of womenfolk has also led some Muslim men to view vulnerable young women from outside the faith as sub-human sexual fodder fit only to be used and abused. Freedom of speech has also been curtailed thanks to the sabre-rattling of angry Muslims. Not since the “fatwah” declared upon Salman Rushdie, forcing him into hiding, have even our most outspoken public figures felt free to fully express themselves.

Muslim urban ghettos have also reintroduced electoral fraud as a regular feature of British political life.

Other wider freedoms for the individual have had to be drastically curtailed in order to facilitate the fight against homegrown Islamist terrorism. The police and security services have been given all manner of sweeping new powers.

Over the weekend, Govern­ment minister Phil Woolas spoke of another repellent cultural practice prevalent among Muslims from Pakistan – the marrying of first cousins and an ensuing epidemic of health problems.

According to Labour MP Ann Cryer, more than 80 per cent of Pakistanis living in her Keighley constituency marry someone living in Pakistan, often a cousin. This facilitates “chain migration” by allowing more Pakistanis to come to Britain to live. It also prevents meaningful integration.

Yet the reaction to Mr Woolas from British Muslims has been hostile and paranoid. One representative group, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, called for the minister to be sacked, accusing him of the catch-all sin of “Islamophobia”.

So this is where we are: large Muslim communities which are almost wholly non-integrated and have brought with them massive social, political and economic problems, think of themselves as victims.

But non-Muslims feel that their British way of life is under outrageous threat. Further terrorist attacks along the lines of 7/7 will only heighten their resentment.

Though Britain’s Muslim population will continue to rapidly expand, it will for many years remain a minority. So in any head-on clash, Muslims are bound to come off worse.

It must therefore be in their best interests to avert such a collision by adopting a famous John F Kennedy injunction as their mantra: it is time for British Muslims to ask not what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country.

Anyone, from the Muslim Public Affairs Council to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who says otherwise is pointing British Islam down a path that can only end in disaster.